Apple Developed This Smartphone Prototype Way Back In 1983

Check out this lost prototype. Way back in 1983, nearly 25 years before the company would produce its first phone, Apple cooked up this prototype of a touchscreen smartphone that could be used in the home.

Steve jobs reportedly looked at various touchscreen technologies in the early 80s but was frustrated by their limitations. This phone uses a stylus and has a slick black on white display, which appears to be running an accounting program. (At the time, VisiCalc— spreadsheet software— was by far the most popular program on Apple's first hit product, the Apple II).

The phone was reportedly designed by one of the Apple II's designers, Hartmut Esslinger. We're starting to get a look at some various lost Apple materials thanks to Stanford University's release of documents the company recently donated.